In the media world of mis-, dis-, and omitted information, the category of science stands front and center. One reason is the inordinate influence ideology has on the dissemination of science.
Too often, partisan influences, whether intentional or not, affect science reporting by using selected facts and figures to support predetermined conclusions while excluding critical information needed to fully understand the complexity of a scientific study. Those conclusions are then extrapolated to substantiate dubious claims while appealing to emotions to promote a favored result. This tends to produce storytelling “where the story is more fiction than fact,” thereby publicizing a false narrative.
Science information communication must avoid any ploys that distort reality.
My 40-plus years of diverse practice in the science profession—as a government meteorologist, industry environmental consultant, and college academic—taught me that one of the biggest poisons to objective analysis is injecting ideology, often in the form of politics, into the body of science.
For instance, as an atmospheric scientist certified by the American Meteorological Society, my observations of the climate change issue from the mid-1970s through today reveal an influx of “expert opinion” that substitutes for hardcore reality.
The expectation of a coming ice age in the 1970s, when I was an undergraduate meteorology student at Penn State, gave way to global warming and imminent climate catastrophe in the 1980s, a theory that still controls today.
Independent thinking seems to have eroded over that time, producing a “consensus class.”
However, the science community is not intended to be a club, one in which members pledge allegiance to a set of orders. Rather, skepticism and independent thought are the order of the day.
Peer review was put in place to make sure the content of scientific research available to the community is grounded in dispassionate, solid evidence. Unfortunately, the review process seems to have become a means to limit challenges to the status quo. And even with peer review, many papers have been approved that contained serious errors and had to be withdrawn after publication, but not before they were used to support foregone conclusions.
A recent example is a climate-change study published in Nature by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. It turns out that methodology problems and data errors in the retracted article, titled “The Economic Commitment of Climate Change,” led to an alarming prediction of an enormous reduction in global GDP by 2100 attributable to climate change. Of course, the original conclusions were touted as additional proof that anthropogenic global warming would be catastrophic to worldwide society.
The physical sciences are not the only ones stilted by ideology and wishful thinking. Perhaps the worst example is the assertion of a trans-sex delusion to obfuscate biological reality. The immutability of the sexes is ignored. Instead, this obvious understanding of basic biology is replaced by pretentious science, its scientists, and their non-science purveyors of non-sense.
Even as the US Supreme Court has heard arguments defending sex distinctions in athletics, science organizations, science educators, and science communicators who promote and defend trans-sex drivel should not be dismayed that a public grounded in rudimentary common sense would be skittish of their recommendations for health care and climate control.
For if anyone does not understand or purposely distorts a basic truth about life—such as the natural derivation of sex normally as either male or female—how can they expect allegiance to their recommendations of utmost importance to societal wellbeing? No amount of phonic finesse should convince people to abandon inherent rationality.
It is a daunting task to deliver unvarnished scientific information on nuanced issues such as climate change to improve chances for effective actions.
Regardless, science communicators are urged to make science more relatable. Yet in recent years, teaching and training by academics and professional communicators have apparently focused on the use of sophisticated rhetoric to maintain a sanctioned storyline. Then, too often, it becomes fantasy versus veracity vis-à-vis science story time.
But, if a He/She/They storyteller can’t get the immutable sexes right, then there is no hope for Him/Her/Them to get a reasonable understanding of the complicated climate correct.
This piece originally appeared at AmericanThinker.com and has been republished here with permission.
